Pedosphere 30(2): 214--225, 2020
ISSN 1002-0160/CN 32-1315/P
©2020 Soil Science Society of China
Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press
| Responses of soil microbial communities and functions associated with organic carbon mineralization to nitrogen addition in a Tibetan grassland |
Ruyi LUO1,2, Jiafa LUO3, Jianling FAN1, Deyan LIU1, Jin-Sheng HE4, Nazia PERVEEN1, Weixin DING1 |
1State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008 (China);
2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 10049 (China);
3AgResearch Limited, Ruakura Research Centre, Hamilton 3240 (New Zealand);
4Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China) |
| ABSTRACT |
| Alpine grasslands with a high soil organic carbon (SOC) storage on the Tibetan Plateau are experiencing rapid climate warming and anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition; this is expected to substantially increase the soil N availability, which may impact carbon (C) cycling. However, little is known regarding how N enrichment influences soil microbial communities and functions relative to C cycling in this region. We conducted a 4-year field experiment on an alpine grassland to evaluate the effects of four different rates of N addition (0, 25, 50, and 100 kg N ha-1 year-1) on the abundance and community structure (phospholipid fatty acids, PLFAs) of microbes, enzyme activities, and community level physiological profiles (CLPP) in soil. We found that N addition increased the microbial biomass C (MBC) and N (MBN), along with an increased abundance of bacterial PLFAs, especially Gram-negative bacterial PLFAs, with a decreasing ratio of Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacteria. The N addition also stimulated the growth of fungi, especially arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, reducing the ratio of fungi to bacteria. Microbial functional diversity and activity of enzymes involved in C cycling (β-1,4-glucosidase and phenol oxidase) and N cycling (β-1,4-N-acetyl-glucosaminidase and leucine aminopeptidase) increased after N addition, resulting in a loss of SOC. A meta-analysis showed that the soil C/N ratio was a key factor in the response of oxidase activity to N amendment, suggesting that the responses of soil microbial functions, which are linked to C turnover relative to N input, primarily depended upon the soil C/N ratio. Overall, our findings highlight that N addition has a positive influence on microbial communities and their associated functions, which may reduce soil C storage in alpine grasslands under global change scenarios. |
| Key Words: alpine grassland,C cycling,C turnover,community level physiological profiles (CLPP),enzyme activity,microbial community composition,microbial function,N input |
| Citation: Luo R Y, Luo J F, Fan J L, Liu D Y, He J S, Perveen N, Ding W X. 2020. Responses of soil microbial communities and functions associated with organic carbon mineralization to nitrogen addition in a Tibetan grassland. Pedosphere. 30(2): 214-225. |
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